Review: Death Ship by Jim Kelly

Death Ship by Jim Kelly, August 2016, 240 pages, Severn House Publishers Ltd, ISBN: 178029090X

Reviewed by Geoff Jones.

Read more of Geoff's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

Hunstanton beach in Norfolk. The Ross family are digging, three boys watched by their parents. They reveal a shiny metal object and start to throw stones and suddenly there is an almighty explosion.

Feelings are running high in the town because of a new Pier being built, but much bigger than the original one. Protest groups are organised and there have been various sabotaging incidents.

Detective Inspector Peter Shaw and Detective Sergeant George Valentine have the “Stop the Pier” protests to worry about as well as a missing Dutch man and an elderly lady handing out chocolates at the bus station, some of which are poisoned, and there has been one death so far.

Valentine also has the problem that his lady - Jan Clay (now a probationary police constable) wants them to move to a house with a sea view and away from George's favourite town dwelling. Shaw's wife Lena runs an up-market bar and cafe on Old Hunstanton beach. Their daughter Fran is growing up fast.

Valentine, on surveillance, arrests the woman who is caught handing out poisoned chocolates, but she refuses to answer any questions.

When a diver's net decorated with sewn-in Dutch flags appears on the beach, Shaw is convinced that the Dutch man – Dirk Hartog has been murdered; he was interested in a sunken Dutch ship from the 1950s. Bomb experts are called in after the problem on the beach.

The “Stop the Pier” movement (which includes some local dignitaries) are getting more and more ruthless and seem capable of harming the pier workers. Can Shaw and Valentine keep the peace and solve the riddle of the missing Dutch man and find the motive of the “sweetie killer”?

This is the seventh Shaw and Valentine novel by the author. Coincidentally it now matches the number of books in the author's original series featuring the journalist Philip Dryden. This is up to his usual good standard, keeping the mystery and suspense levels high. Recommended.

Geoff Jones, October 2016

Review Roundup: Bolton, Carol, Carter, Den Tex, Edwards, Gordon-Smith, Hodgson, Jones, Kelly, Mankell, Marklund, Mogford, Patterson & Ellis, Staalesen

Here are sixteen reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today, all have appeared on the blog since last time.

If you like translated crime fiction then you may be interested in the International Dagger 2016 Speculation list of titles.

You can keep up to date with Euro Crime by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page and follow on Twitter, @eurocrime.

New Reviews

Michelle Peckham reviews Sharon Bolton's Little Black Lies, set in the Falklands;

Susan White reviews James Carol's Prey, the third in the Jefferson Winter series set in the US;

Amanda Gillies reviews Chris Carter's I Am Death, the seventh in his Robert Hunter series set in LA;


Guest reviewer Bob Cornwell reviews the Dutch thriller Mr. Miller by Charles Den Tex tr. Nancy Forest-Flier;

Rich Westwood reviews Martin Edwards's The Golden Age of Murder - a history of the Detection Club;


Terry Halligan reviews Dolores Gordon-Smith's The Chessman, the ninth in the 1920s Jack Haldean series;

Terry also reviews The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins by Antonia Hodgson, the sequel to the award winning The Devil in the Marshalsea;


Geoff Jones reviews J Sydney Jones's The Third Place, the sixth in the Viennese mystery series;

Geoff also reviews Jim Kelly's Death on Demand, the sixth in the Shaw & Valentine series set in North Norfolk;


Lynn Harvey reviews Henning Mankell's An Event in Autumn tr. Laurie Thompson;

Michelle also reviews Liza Marklund's Without a Trace tr. Neil Smith - the tenth and penultimate entry in the Annika Bengtzon series;

Lynn also reviews Thomas Mogford's Sleeping Dogs which takes Gibraltar-based lawyer Spike Sanguinetti to Corfu;

I review parts Three, Four and Five of Murder House by James Patterson and David Ellis


and Ewa Sherman reviews Gunnar Staalesen's We Shall Inherit the Wind tr. Don Bartlett which is the sixteenth in the PI Varg Veum series though only six are currently available in English and is the first of three from Orenda Books.

Review: Death on Demand by Jim Kelly

Death on Demand by Jim Kelly, July 2015, 224 pages, Creme de la Crime, ISBN: 1780290772

Reviewed by Terry Halligan.
(Read more of Terry's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

When the newspapers turn up to cover Ruby Bright's 100th birthday, they find her seaside care home is a murder scene. Someone spirited Ruby away by wheelchair down to the water's edge on the idyllic north Norfolk coast, and strangled her. But why kill a harmless centurion? As Detective Inspector Shaw and Detective Sergeant Valentine investigate, it's clear Ruby wasn't the first victim, and nor is she the last. All trails seem to lead back to the old Parkwood Springs estate, close to the docklands. There's only one way in and one way out of the estate - through the derelict Lister Tunnel. But what is the secret within...?

DI Shaw is advised by a very senior officer, that DS Valentine, his partner of many years, will be told that his heavy smoking habit has caused him to develop terminal lung cancer and that he has limited time left. Shaw is told this in confidence so that he may counsel Valentine, when he has been officially told by his doctor.

Thoughts and worries about Valentine weigh on Shaw's mind and are such that investigation of all the many clues regarding the serial murders is taken up more by Valentine than by Shaw.

The descriptions by the author of the Norfolk coast, Hunstanton and around there are very evocative for me and remind me of the many happy times I had on camping holidays in years gone by in the vicinity; and is something I look forward to reading when I have books by this author.

The high quality of the tight plotting of the story of this police procedural is much to be savoured and reading a book with characters that you have enjoyed in previous works is like putting on an old and well worn pair of gloves again and you pick up the previous enjoyment very quickly.

I read his outstanding first book in the Shaw and Valentine series, DEATH WORE WHITE privately and the second one DEATH WATCH for review in 2010 and really enjoyed it and although I had hoped to read his following books, DEATH ON DEMAND is the first one that I've had the privilege of reviewing since.

This was a most enjoyable book and I look forward to reading more by this very gifted author.

Recommended.

Terry Halligan, September 2015.

New Reviews: Alaux & Balen, Grey, Hall, James, Kelly, McKinty, Rendell, Russell, Schumacher

Since the last set of reviews went up, the Euro Crime favourite reads of 2014 have been compiled and the most mentioned authors/titles/translators announced.

In addition the review team's favourite discoveries of 2014 have been revealed.

In addition, here are nine reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today.

NB. You can keep up to date with Euro Crime by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page.

New Reviews

Terry Halligan reviews Treachery in Bordeaux by Jean-Pierre Alaux & Noel Balen tr. Anne Trager, the first in the Winemaker Detective series;

Susan White reviews Isabelle Grey's Good Girls Don't Die;

Lynn Harvey reviews Tarquin Hall's The Case of the Love Commandos;

Rich Westwood reviews Christina James's Sausage Hall, the third in the DI Yates series;

Geoff Jones reviews Jim Kelly's At Death's Window, the latest in his North Norfolk-set Shaw & Valentine series;

Mark Bailey reviews Gun Street Girl by Adrian McKinty, the fourth in the Sean Duffy series;

Michelle Peckham reviews The Girl Next Door by Ruth Rendell;


Amanda Gillies reviews Leigh Russell's Race to Death

and Susan also reviews Tony Schumacher's The Darkest Hour.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

New Reviews: Camilleri, Connolly, Hunter, Kelly, Kepler, O'Donnell, Robertson

Here are 7 new reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today:

Maxine Clarke reviews Andrea Camilleri's The Age of Doubt tr. Stephen Sartarelli the latest Montalbano to have a UK release;

Lynn Harvey reviews John Connolly's The Wrath of Angels the new 'Charlie Parker' novel;

Terry Halligan reviews Alan Hunter's Gently Continental, the series upon which the TV show is (very) loosely based;

Jim Kelly's Philip Dryden is back, in Nightrise, reviewed here by Geoff Jones;

Earlier this week, on the blog, I reviewed Lars Kepler's The Nightmare tr. Laura A Wideburg, the follow-up to The Hypnotist, starring Stockholm detective Joona Linna;

Susan White reviews Peter O'Donnell's A Taste for Death featuring Modesty Blaise, which is being serialised on Radio 4 later this month

and Amanda Gillies reviews the paperback release of Imogen Robertson's Circle of Shadows the fourth in the eighteenth-century Westerman-Crowther series.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

New Reviews: Bourland, Dean, Dryden, Hill, Kelly, Meredith, Rickman, Seymour, Winspear

Here are 9 new reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today:

Earlier this week I reviewed on the blog, Fabrice Bourland's The Dream Killer of Paris tr. Morag Young the second in the Singleton and Trelawney series set in the 1930s;

Amanda Gillies reviews A M Dean's debut The Lost Library;

Lynn Harvey reviews Alex Dryden's thriller Death in Siberia the fourth in the Anna Resnikov series but Lynn says also works well as a standalone;

Maxine Clarke reviews Antonio Hill's The Summer of Dead Toys tr. Laura McGoughlin set in a steamy Barcelona [this will be in my top ten reads of 2012];

Geoff Jones reviews Jim Kelly's Death's Door, the fourth in his Valentine/Shaw series set in Norfolk [fans of his Dryden series please note that a new book in that series, Nightrise, has just come out];

Terry Halligan reviews the UK release of D E Meredith's debut Devoured which introduces Victorian forensic pathologists Hatton and Roumande;

Rich Westwood reviews Phil Rickman's The Heresy of Dr Dee the second in his Elizabethan series;

Terry also reviews E V Seymour's fourth 'Paul Tallis' thriller Resolution to Kill available on Kindle

and Susan White reviews the newest Maisie Dobbs from Jacqueline Winspear Elegy for Eddie - "a real joy".

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

Publishing News: Paul Johnston & Jim Kelly

Severn House's new imprint Creme de la Crime is picking up a lot of well-known British authors. Coming soon are the fourth books in series by Paul Johnston and Jim Kelly.

It's been a seven year wait for The Silver Stain the fourth in Paul Johnston's Greece-set Alex Mavros series. In the intervening years, MIRA reissued the paperbacks of the first three, retitling the first, A Deeper Shade of Blue as Crying Blue Murder. The Silver Stain will be published on 29 December (UK) and 1 April 2012 (US).

Hired by a Hollywood film company to trace a missing employee in Crete, private investigator Alex Mavros is plunged into a vortex of hatred. The company is shooting a movie about the invasion of Crete by the Germans in 1941 - and their activities are stirring up old resentments among the islanders. The bitterness of the past bursts into the present when one of the film's consultants is found dead, hanged by the neck. Suicide - or murder Mavros investigates and is drawn into an ever-widening conspiracy.






No such long wait for fans of Jim Kelly's Shaw and Valentine series as it'll only have been a year since the last title, Death Toll. Death's Door, the fourth in the North Norfolk-set Shaw and Valentine series will be published on 26 January 2012 (UK) and 1 May 2012 (US)

On a hot August day in 1994, 76 holidaymakers travel to an island off the North Norfolk coast. Only 75 return alive - a young man is murdered, the case left unsolved. Twenty years later, using state-of-the-art forensics, the DNA results of a bloodsoaked towel prompts DI Peter Shaw to summon all 75 original suspects to a mass screening. but one of them, the beautiful Marianne Osbourne, is found dead in her bed. Is there a link to the 1994 murder DI Shaw and DS Valentine become immersed in the dark secrets of an isolated community.





These books should be easily available in your public library system. If you prefer to buy then there's usually a cheaper trade format edition a few months after the hardback release.

Death Wore White - cover opinions

The second of Jim Kelly's new series was reviewed on Euro Crime at the weekend, but I'd like to look at the covers from the first book in the series, Death Wore White.

Both editions were published in 2009. The US edition (on the left) came out as a hardback, the UK edition (on the right) came out as a paperback original.

So what are you thoughts on the US and UK covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with Jim Kelly?

Here is the Euro Crime review, by Pat, of Death Wore White.





(This series is set in North Norfolk, a rural part of England, so I'm a bit puzzled by what looks to be an American squad car! ps If you click on the US cover you can read the writing.)

New Reviews: B Black, S Black, Kelly, Mallo, Moss, Sherez

Two competitions for August and one is open internationally:
Win one of three sets of Lockdown and Deadlock by Sean Black (Worldwide)
Win one of five copies of Inspector Cataldo's Criminal Summer by Luigi Guicciardi, tr Iain Halliday (UK & Europe)

Here are this week's reviews, which this week aren't restricted to Europe!:

Laura Root reviews Benjamin Black's third Quirke book, Elegy for April concluding that it "is another slice of classy Emerald Noir";

Michelle Peckham reviews one of this month's competition prizes Deadlock by Sean Black, set in the US and is one for fans of fast, action thrillers;

Terry Halligan reviews the second in Jim Kelly's new Norfolk-based series, Death Watch writing that "detective fiction needs more books of this high quality";

I pop over to 1970s Argentina in Ernesto Mallo's Needle in a Haystack, tr. Jethro Soutar which is rather a bleak read;

Maxine Clarke reviews Australian author, Tara Moss's Hit which has its first UK publication

and Geoff Jones is in Greece in Stav Sherez's The Black Monastery.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found by author or date, here.

New Reviews: Claudel, George, Kelly, Sewell

The following reviews have been added to the review archive over on the main Euro Crime website.

New Reviews:

Norman Price reviews the impressive Brodeck's Report by Philippe Claudel which left him "breathless with admiration";

Terry Halligan was disappointed with Elizabeth George's Careless in Red which he found had too little of the series characters Lynley and Havers;

Pat Austin gives the thumbs up to the first in Jim Kelly's spin-off series Death Wore White which is set on a snowy Norfolk coastline

and Maxine Clarke reviews Bloodprint by Kitty Sewell which has rather too much going on for her liking.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found here.

The current competition is for a copy of The Reunion by Simone van der Vlugt (here's an extract). (Closing date is 28st February, one entry per household and UK entrants only.)